Babies Online - The Blog

I Didn’t Take a Birthing Class

I’m a planner. I like to plan everything as well as possible, and if you don’t believe me then ask my husband how long I researched the process of buying a home before we actually applied for a loan (hint: at least a year). So of course I signed us up for birthing classes at the hospital because I wanted to know everything I could about the process of labor and what my options were. I had already attended a breastfeeding class and looked forward to continuing my education regarding all things baby.

The day that my classes were scheduled to start, I was put on bed rest by my doctor. My blood pressure was high and my doctor was getting worried, so I was sent straight to bed and told to lay on my side. Don’t cook. Don’t clean. For goodness sake, don’t attend the birthing class that night. I did as I was told, but I was pretty upset since there weren’t any other classes scheduled until after my due date.

When the time came to have the baby, I was relatively terrified because I felt ill-prepared. Every doctor and nurse who walked into the room got the same panicked proclamation from me: “I didn’t take a birthing class! I’ll need extra help! I don’t know what I’m doing!” Every doctor and nurse gave me the same response: “You’ll be fine.” No matter how much they assured me to the contrary, I was sure that I had missed out on some secret formula presented at the class that would make labor easier.

Here is what I want you to know: Between the advise of the medical staff and listening to my body, I did just fine. I’m not saying that labor classes don’t have merit, but sometimes I wonder if we should just learn to trust our instincts just a little bit more. So by all means, take the class and learn all you can, but if you find yourself in a situation like mine where you just can’t go, then try not to panic. I’ll tell you the same thing I was told over and over again: You’ll be fine.

Test

Posted by Tamsen Butler on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Pregnancy.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

One Response to “I Didn’t Take a Birthing Class”

Thanks for posting this! I’m opting not to take a class but just watch a video. I figure with all the books I’ve read and all the mommy friends I have dishing out their experiences, I’ll be prepared as I’ll ever be.